Wednesday, November 9, 2011

She is to play a young Princess Elizabeth in Michael Hoffman's planned film about the future queen and her sister, Princess Margaret, being allowed out of Buckingham Palace to celebrate the end of the second world war in 1945.

In her first newspaper interview, she told the Observer that she was pinching herself in disbelief: "I know it sounds corny, but that's exactly what I'm doing."

She is not starry-eyed enough to forget that acting is an industry which, whatever the talent, requires incredible luck. "I'm just very lucky [and] under no illusion that it could stop any second."

Her break came after she was spotted by Nina Gold, a casting director, in a Rada production, leading to an invitation to audition for one of the most sought-after roles for a young actress – playing the young Margaret Thatcher in The Iron Lady, the much anticipated film with Meryl Streep as the older Thatcher.

Arriving for the audition in the former prime minister's trademark blue suit, handbag and "set and curl" hair got her into the role in every sense, despite, at an earlier audition, nervously forgetting lines.

Alexandra got into acting as a child, appearing regularly in a Welsh-language soap. "My next-door neighbour was going to a drama class. I was bored, so she invited me along," she explained. "That Saturday, they were casting for Pobol y Cwm (People of the Valley) and I got the job." So, between the ages of 11 and 18, she appeared on Welsh television as "the village troublemaker", Elin Owen, a part for which she won a Children in Entertainment award in 2003.

Jones, the Iron Lady producer, said that Roach stood out from the other potentials who auditioned: "She had a steeliness we were looking for in our young Margaret. Her talent was self-evident."